THE PROBLEM OF LEGALIZED USE OF FLY AGARICS AND DIAGNOSIS BASED ON THE RESULTS OF CLINICAL LABORATORY DIAGNOSTICS (LITERATURE REVIEW)
E. Evdokimova, D. Pshennikova, E. Kuznetsova, O. Strelova
Problems of Biological Medical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry June 14, 2025 DOI: 10.29296/25877313-2025-06-06 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Law |
| Key findings | The authors argue that unregulated sale of Amanita muscaria and Amanita pantherina products in Russia has encouraged recreational use and a large number of poisonings. They report that the psychoactive compounds ibotenic acid, muscimol, and methyltetrahydrocarbolinecarboxylic acid act on the central nervous system as excitatory, inhibitory, and hallucinogenic agents, and that no detection methods for these key components appear in the literature, which they call an urgent diagnostic gap. |
Abstract
In recent years, the popularity of fly agaric «microdosing» has increased, which involves their systematic use in small doses (usually several grams) in order to provide a "therapeutic effect without harm to the body." The market offers capsules, dried caps of red fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) and pantherine fly agaric (Amanita pantherina), which until recently were actively sold by individual entrepreneurs on Russian e-commerce platforms. At the federal level, the storage, purchase and sale of pantherine and red fly agarics, as well as psychoactive compounds in their composition, such as ibotenic acid and muscimol, are not regulated in the Russian Federation, which has led to their recreational use and, as a result, a large number of poisonings. The purpose of the work is to review the literature on the main manifestations and features of the action of toxicants of the red and panther fly agarics during recreational use by humans, motives for use, statistics of poisoning, toxicodynamics and toxicokinetics of fly agaric alkaloids and the chemical composition of the species. As a result of a consistent analysis of available literature data, the chemical composition of the red fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) and the panther fly agaric (Amanita pantherina) was examined, explaining the reason for the recreational use of raw materials (dried caps and capsules). The psychoactive components of the fly agaric are ibotenic acid, muscimol and methyltetrahydrocarbolinecarboxylic acid, which have an exciting, inhibitory and hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system. The literature does not contain data on the methods for detecting the most important chemical components of the red fly agaric and panther fly agaric responsible for the psychotropic effect, which is an urgent problem of clinical laboratory diagnostics